Friday, February 15, 2013

Ohio, Day 2

Adam is off playing EMT somewhere between Ohio & Pennsylvania.  He must be feeling adventurous out there because he's eaten sushi twice already.  Bold.  But that's one of the things that makes him so lovable.  So Gaia and I are having a month of girl time here in Seattle.  And cleaning.  Anyway, let's get to the things that require Constant Supervision, shall we?

Alternate post title:  Lexi, will you be my Valentine?

I was hoping this would look like a flower,
but it doesn't really at all.

Between the nice weather and the 27 hours of OT I put in last week, I blew out of work early to ride Grand Ridge.  My focus was threefold:
a) Stay in the saddle while climbing.
b) Enjoy the sun and the fact that I didn't even need knee warmers or tall socks.
c) Avoid getting run down by the weekday trail hogs.

How did I do?
a) Not bad.  I still instinctively stand up when the hills get hard, but maybe that's the road rider in me that refuses to be stifled.  The big breakthrough here was to throw Lexi into the granny gear so I  could actually spin.  The difference was amazing.  So much so that the third and final climb over the ridge on the way out was not only doable, but I dare say bearable.  I kept waiting for it to get really hard, but then I was bombing back downhill again.  Now this makes the second climb out the really tough one.  Better get un-lazy.
b) This was the easiest of my three goals.  I nearly failed when the tuna salad I had for lunch threatened to revisit on the first climb.  And after the second trail I rode out at Duthie, my toes started to get cold.... and continued to get more cold until I put them under the blasting heater back at the car over an hour later.
c) Even with all the things that made (b) a point on this list and the fact that it was already Friday afternoon, there were still a handful of riders that I crossed paths with during my first climb in who were CLEARLY not interested in yielding to us weekend trail riding working stiffs. I nearly got run off the side of the mountain only once, so I think we can call this a success.

So a pretty good ride overall.  Maybe next time I'll make my focus be to not ride the brakes down all the hills.  Or at least not both of them.  Baby steps.  This was the longest solo ride I think I've ever done.  Granted, this may only be the second or third solo ride I've ever done, so the bar was not too high.

I don't understand why the climb & downhill stats don't match,
considering I started and stopped the app in the same place
.

No comments:

Post a Comment